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Hi again all,

I'm going home to England for 12 days in August and I found a neighbour to watch over my turtles for me whilst I'm gone.

Currently as per advice gleaned from these excellent forums, I'm feeding my Turtles primarily on a few pellets a day. The problem with the Flukers pellets (Buffet Blend) I use is that they take around 15 minutes to soften enough in the water so that my turtles can actually eat them. I also have Zoo Med hatchling pellets, but those are absolutely useless, my turtles never seem to be capable of swallowing them, they just float out of their mouths.

I want to make it as simple as possible for my neighbours, so that feeding time won't be an ordeal. I was wondering if anyone can recommend something that is soft enough to eat more or less as soon as it hits the water. I know this is the case witch dried shrimp or mealworms, but I obviously don't want them to live on just that for 2 weeks.

Are turtle sticks a better idea than pellets? If so is there a good brand you can recommend?

-MVB

It only takes a few minutes for Reptomin to soften up, but my RES eat them while they're still hard. Also, sort out the pellets in pill boxes for your neighbor, to make it a bit easier.

Would anybody recommend putting a bag of tiny feeder fish in there? I'm not keen on the idea personally, but some people (not experts by any measure) suggested it.

My turtle would eat most of the feeder fish within a few hours. Unless you have a lot of places for the fish to hide, they won't last long. I use an autofeeder and pellets, round pellets work better in most auto feeders as sticks get stuck.

By the way, I finally got them eating veggies. I thought they'd eaten some before, but found the artichoke leaves I put in clinging to the filter. For the last few days I've been putting Kale leaves in the tank overnight and they've been giving up on it pretty quickly, but I came home really late last night, later than their usual feeding time, and they'd eaten it all. I put more in and they went crazy for it.

How often should I be feeding them vegetables? I'm giving them 4/5 pellets a day and occasionally river shrimp or mealworms as treats. Is it a good idea to leave Kale leaves in their tank every day? Or should it be less frequent as that?

Oh and remember, they're only about two months old!

You can make some food (see the jell-o shot recipe) or wash some lettuce and dry it (a salad spinner is helpful) for your neighbor to use.

Has anyone tried these?

http://www.petco.com/product/115389/Zoo ... 4AodKggAcA

I found them at the pet store yesterday and they were suggested as food for when you go on vacation. If this is something I could just leave in the water so that my neighbours didn't really need to feed them by hand, that could be helpful.

I picked up some of those repto sticks and my little guys can't get enough of them. They can eat them right away without them soaking too, so thanks for that recommendation!

Seemed OK but then it says this "Helps neutralize acidic water"... I'm not sure what to make of that.

That's a bad thing?

Not sure what it is, though there's no mention of it on the Zoo Med site. Calcium blocks are OK, but we'd want to keep the medicated versions away.

Buffering low ph water is just another effect of the calcium. I'd stick to the autofeeder, keeping food in the water that long seems like a quick way of fouling it.

Rather than an auto-feeder, I'm going to get the guys looking after them to feed them by hand. It's easier to stop them fighting that way.

I got a free tub of this, would it be OK for hatchling turtles? http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-Med-Red-Banan ... B0042SKXRG

Iguanas and Tortoises are mentioned on the can. I figure it'd make a good treat if they'll eat it, but I wanted to be sure.

Fruits are high in sugars, which aren't really good for a RES, particularly as a staple. A wild RES doesn't really encounter fruit, so their systems haven't evolved to metabolize it.

It might be ok as an occasional treat.